On August 1, a teenager posted a message on Reddit ExMuslim, in which he said ‘my parents are planning for me to get circumcised, I don’t want to be circumcised, what can I do, especially if I runaway?’
His message, plus two subsequent posts here and here prompted many to advise to boy to report the matter to the police.
When Justice for Men and Boys, a UK-based organisation that strongly opposes male genital mutilation, heard of the boy’s plight, it hastily arranged a protest outside the Qualified Circumcision Clinic in Coventry where the lad was due to be circumcised yesterday (August 19).
Mike Buchanan, of J4MB, also sent the clinic the following message:
Illegal male circumcision.
I lead the political party Justice for Men & Boys. Non-therapeutic circumcision is illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act (1861), being at least Actual Bodily Harm, and possibly Grievous Bodily Harm. I shall be travelling to your clinic in Coventry today in a bid to stop the circumcision of a 12-year-old boy who has claimed on Reddit that he is to be circumcised at 1 pm today without his consent.
The clinic is part of the City of Coventry NHS Healthcare Centre, and is headed by Dr (Mr) Altaf Mangera, a NHS consultant surgeon in Urology working at the prestigious Royal Hallamshire Teaching Hospital.
Dr (Mr) Altaf Mangera is the lead consultant surgeon at QCC and has been performing and teaching both major and minor surgery procedures for 10 years. He is qualified and experienced in the surgical procedure of circumcision.
Buchanan later posted a piece saying that:
The appointment for the circumcision was cancelled, and we had plenty of contact with the police. Three police cars were stationed outside the clinic when we arrived.
However, the appointment cancellation isn’t the end of the matter, because we expect the appointment to be re-scheduled. There are a number of details in this story which I think it unwise to divulge at this stage, for the sake of the boy.
We wore bodycams throughout our three-hour protest (from midday to 3pm, when the clinic closed for the day) and handed out hundreds of leaflets to passers-by. We also had dozens of interesting discussions with passers-by, mainly Muslim.
We wore bodycams, and took six hours of video footage between us. Some footage may appear on our YouTube channel in due course.
Buchanan also revealed that the clinic had responded in some length to the protest. Part of the clinic’s reponse reads:
Our clinic were the ones who in fact informed the police and child protection agencies (they were none the wiser) about a possible boy of 12 fearing circumcision, while you were too busy stiring (sic) up hate without knowing the facts, we were instead acting responsibly.
• The intro picture shows Patrick Smyth protesting outside the clinic